This is a reprint of an article that I wrote for the Bloodhound blog just a few days ago.

A quick note: I am a mortgage broker and banker so I wear both hats. I consider myself in the group below.

Seth Godin wrote a great post the other day simply titled “Responsibility” that focused on one key question: “Are you responsible for what you market?”

His answer was a resounding yes based on this premise: marketing works. If you agree that marketing works then you should agree that the idea of free choice is really not that free. Marketing influences choice. Godin cites the decline in cigarette smoking over the period since advertising has been significantly curtailed as one (of many) examples:

If marketing works, it means that free choice isn’t quite so free. It means that marketers get to influence and amplify desires. The number of SUVs sold in the United States is a bazillion times bigger than it was in 1962. Is that because people suddenly want them, or is it because car marketers built them and marketed them?

Cigarette consumption is way down. Is that because people suddenly don’t want them any more, or is it because advertising opportunities are limited?

This post led me to some new thinking on our embattled industry and the current round of finger-pointing up and down the money-ladder. The common refrain from mortgage brokers as a defense to the “predatory lending” accusations being bandied about by consumer groups and government entities is “We only sold what the banks gave us to sell” and “Brokers don’t underwrite the product.” These notions that depict brokers as impotent pawns in the mortgage game with little control over their actions-resigned to the whims of the banking world, forced to peddle whatever products were made available by the banks- is callous and dangerous. This position is clearly one that Mr. Godin would whole-heartedly disagree with; and I do too.

As brokers we’re responsible for the loans we choose to put our customers in. When we choose to put a retired person on fixed income in a negatively amortizing payment-option loan for maximum rebate with out clearly identifying their comfort level and understanding of the loan we must take responsibility for that action. The culpability rests with us for making greed-driven, customer-damaging decisions; regardless of what the program guidelines from the banks say.

Whether you as a mortgage originator choose to accept a fiduciary responsibility for your client or not-as a marketer you have another responsibility-to be responsible with the products you market. If you are a broker or sales person marketing negatively amortizing payment-option loans to people as a way to simply maximize your monthly income, you have not only failed to uphold any semblance of fiduciary responsibility, but you have also violated the consumer’s trust from a responsible-marketing perspective as well.

By choosing to market products simply based on the potential for profit and by the market’s desire for them you choose to not use the power of marketing judiciously and responsibly. You choose to maximize your own gain at the expense of the market and your customers.

Your choice to do this is unethical, immoral and plain wrong; regardless of where you think the true decision-making lies.

As Seth states:

My point is that you have no right to market things you know are harmful or that lead to bad outcomes, regardless of how much you need that job.

Along the way, “just doing my job,” has become a mantra for blind marketers who are making short-term mistakes in order to avoid a conflict with the client or the boss. As marketing becomes every more powerful, this is just untenable. It’s unacceptable.

If you get asked to market something, you’re responsible. You’re responsible for the impacts, the costs, the side effects and the damage. You killed that kid. You poisoned that river. You led to that fight. If you can’t put your name on it, I hope you’ll walk away.

I’ve walked away because it helps me sleep at night. I know too many in this industry who chose not to take responsibility; who continue to point fingers up the food chains to the banks that make the products available-who refuse to take responsibility for marketing and selling dangerous products under the pitiful guise of “just offering what the banks are selling.”

I hope that after the housing and mortgage market shake out that the professionals left standing are the ones who have been willing to take responsibility for the products they market in an effort to make our industry a better, more consumer-friendly place where the products benefit the people who use them-rather than disenfranchise them millions at a time.